The present invention relates to equipment by which cylindrical commodities are stacked automatically in layers, a typical though by no means exclusive application being the preparation of rolls of paper for transfer to a wrapping machine.
Conventionally, cylindrical commodities such as rolls of paper are often packaged in layers, the single items of one layer making contact with those directly above or beneath along a common straight line cylindrical generator.
One current packaging method substantially involves ordering the commodities into layers by means of an indexing platform which is lowered through a number of positions separated one from the next above by a distance not less than the height of one layer.
With the single layers supplied to the platform at the same height, the platform is indexed on receipt of each layer to the next position, moving downward until the number of layers accumulated matches that required to complete the package.
Thus, with the exception of the first layer, which rests directly on the platform, each successive layer will be stacked directly on top of the layer previously positioned. Given that the layers remain stationary once taken onto the platform, however, one necessarily has a sliding contact between the layer uppermost and the next layer received; this represents a drawback, as the surfaces in contact suffer mutual damage, and the greater the friction generated between the layered commodities (which is naturally high in the instance of paper rolls), the greater will be the extent of such damage.
Accordingly, the object of the invention disclosed is to embody equipment that will stack layers of cylindrical commodities without occasioning sliding contact between one commodity and another.